“TOAD OF TOAD HALL”

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 239, 6 July 1931, Page 5

“TOAD OF TOAD HALL”

Play by A. A. Milne

“Toad of Toad Hall,” a play by A. A. Milne, from Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows,” was presented on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening in Chilton Hall, Chilton Saint James, Lower Hutt, in a realistic, natural and charming manner. The making of the costumes and preparation of the scenery involved considerable work. The central figure is “Toad,” whose conceit was considered an outrage by his humbler friends. All the scenes depict either his insufferable boasting, or the attempts of his friends to reduce him to a humbler frame of- mind. The first scene depicts a river! bank and Mr. Water Rat’s house, and introduces Mr. Mole, Mr. Badger, and the notorious Mr. Toad. The “Wild Wood by Moonlight” was a charming scene, and Mr! Badger’s underground house was also, disclosed. Act 111 depicts'the trialof the wealthy and reckless .“Toad,” who has taken unlawful • possession of a . motor-ear, and also ( given “cheek” to the. protesting policeman. He is convicted and sentenced to. 20 years’ imprisonment. He is next depicted in a “noisome dungeon,” but only temporarily defeated, for he is befriended by a washerwoman, in whose garments he escapes. He is then informed . that his magnificent “Toad Hall” has been taken possession of by stoats and weasels, but,* by means of an underground passage, he and his friends gain the banqueting hall just in time to eject the inmates, who are, in satirical manner, drinking his health, so “The Toad” ends, as he began, monarch of. all he surveys!